


Surmont

by misbehavingvigilante



Series: Tales Inspired by the Discord Year 1 [24]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Child Death, Gen, M/M, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 19:36:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20431331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbehavingvigilante/pseuds/misbehavingvigilante
Summary: “Is it about…”They haven’t done a lot of talking post snap. There have been long stretches of silence, only made better by having someone to have shared it with, someone who could have any kind of the amount of grief they were going through.





	Surmont

**Author's Note:**

> See end notes for more elaboration on what exactly this story is about, if you need more of a run down. 
> 
> If you feel like this needs more tags/warnings or that I need to elaborate more please let me know.
> 
> If you wanna chat, I'm on [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/thiefoftruth26).

“Is it about…”

They haven’t done a lot of talking post snap. There have been long stretches of silence, only made better by having someone to have shared it with, someone who could have any kind of the amount of grief they were going through. 

There wasn’t exactly a way she wouldn’t have known given she had tended to his injuries. Not that there had been much to do to begin with, anyways.

It was more how he had reacted after the fact that gave it away.

“Well, it was early so if it had to happen, then…” Tony shrugged. Perhaps it’s a callous way of referencing to his once child, but really at just around a month in, there wasn’t any pain, there wasn’t any thought, there wasn’t even an echo of anything that could be considered a heart.

In truth, well, he had expected to lose the child anyways. He’s rather old to be having kids, to say nothing of the trauma his body had been through or what he’s added to it since then. Probably the only reason something happened in the first place is because of Steve’s age, and to some degree the serum. To Tony’s knowledge, it shouldn’t pass the germline, so it would be somatic alone, but it could definitely influence fertility. 

So it’s not much of a loss.

If he’s honest, Peter haunts him far more. That had actually been a child, a child that had needed him and a child that he failed, that he had gotten killed.

“Right.” Nebula says, she doesn’t seem to know what to say. “I’m still sorry regardless.”

“Yeah, that’s not you in the least bit. Why don’t we play more of the paper football game again? You seem to be getting good at it.”

“I would not be opposed to that.” Tony recognizes the tone of someone who’s tried to hold back how much it actually means to them, to stay nonchalant because they’ve been taught that having an overly emotional response to it will bring something bad instead.

He hates that he sees it on Nebula but with a ‘father’, and Tony uses that in the least sense of the term like Thanos what else could be expected?

He smiles regardless though, they don’t have much out in here in space, but they do have each other.

~

Tony is very far from coherent in the end, he’s still mad at Steve, their tryst had not exactly been a kind one. It was more, he hit Steve’s mouth with his mouth, and then it just sorta spiraled from there. There wasn’t any resolution to any of their problems.

So he doesn’t say anything to the effect, ‘So it turns out, I lost two kids. Might as well have killed them myself, all things considered’. He does say he lost the kid, which he means Peter, and then promptly needs medical care.

He doesn’t think there’s any way for them to tell there was a miscarriage. He had spent enough time in space the hCG levels should be normal for any person who was capable of pregnancy, but wasn’t.

No one says anything in the end, so it means he was right about the tests and that Nebula said nothing. He really does have to buy her something nice, or do something nice. Or do something to repay her kindness even more now.

In his more coherent moments, he says as much. “Thank you.”

“It was not my place.” Nebula replies. “If there is a next time, let us make sure Thanos is dead first.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Tony doesn’t know what to think about having another child. The same principal applies as before, he’s too old, he’s unlikely to carry to full term, and what is the point? He’s had a child die inside of him before and one die in his arms.

To say nothing of all the children he may have killed back when he was making weapons. Even if he had been naïve enough to assume they were helping soldiers stay safe, there’s blood on his hands, and it’s never coming off.

And then there’s Steve. Steve who keeps circling around him, who keeps asking how he is, and how they are.

For a moment, Tony humors hurting him worse with the secret knowledge of their once child.

But no, that’s crossing a line. There’s enough grief going on right now, and he doesn’t need to add to it. He does however need to be better about birth control rather foolishly assuming at his age, he doesn’t need in case there is a next time.

He doesn’t want a child.

More importantly, there’s a world to save.

~

The most civil conversation they have starts when he’s looking for Harley. Steve had come to bring him food and Tony had been too involved in his search, to realize the man hadn’t left yet.

“Another kid?” Steve asks.

Tony has to hold back a chuckle, it’s a really morbid thing to laugh at if it’s all thing considered and Steve will only get concerned if he does so he makes an aborted sound instead.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you.”

Yeah, surprise, that was a good thing to go with instead.

“I met him during the Mandarin fiasco.” Tony explains. “Kid’s dad ran off and well, let’s just say I related to not really having a father around.”

Steve is quiet for a long moment after the fact. Perhaps it’s because Tony is speaking more on the man Howard become after the war, and Steve doesn’t want to hear it. A pity because Tony isn’t going to pretend that the man was really father of the year material.

It isn’t rocket science for your kid to know that you love them.

“I’m glad you were there for him, then.”

“Right place, right time.” Tony shrugs, it wasn’t anything more than that though he had kept in touch over the years. “Looks like he made it.” 

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

It’s rare to hear good news these days, it’s even rarer for him and Steve to get along but Tony isn’t itching for a fight so he lets it be.

~

Things get back to pre-snap normal for the most part in a matter of months. They’re far from easy months, everyone is on edge, full of grief and primed with enough desperation that every single suicidal idea they had doesn’t get shut down.

They all consider it with an amount of potential, that they never would have before half the universe vanished because of a single snap.

Surprisingly, really surprisingly, they don’t lose anyone on their adventure to put everything back the way it was before. Thanos dies and Nebula is as happy as he’s ever seen her when she chops his head off. It looked like Thor had really wanted to the honors, too, but Nebula had dealt with Thanos far longer than any of them had.

He and Steve get back to normal as well. It’s rather like before their little divorce between two people who were never married but who were also a little married.

They haven’t slept with each other again since then. Tony has been the main one saying no, rebuffing Steve when he gets close and Steve doesn’t press. But there is a potential now for something, the thing is however… Tony can’t keep a secret like this and not expect it to come out eventually.

It’s nowhere near as severe as ‘Hey, I think my best friend might have murdered your parents while he was brainwashed’, but it would make him a hypocrite if he says nothing.

That said as soon as the thought appears, he doesn’t say anything

~

“How’s it going, kid?” Tony asks, nowadays he’s much more affectionate with Peter. Not that it’s always tight hugs or looking at him like Tony can’t believe he’s actually here and in front of him again, it’s just here and there touches.

He doesn’t want Peter to feel like he doesn’t care which it’s rather clear, Peter responds to affection and likes him better like this.

“Going well. I talked to MJ today.”

“Did you confess?”

“Did you confess?” Peter throws the question back at him and Tony laughs. He can’t really remember the last time he laughed like this so amused and genuine. Of course, Peter knew, he was a smart kid, he was going to be much smarter than Tony would be.

The future was in bright hands.

“Can’t say I have. If I confess, will you confess?” Tony wagers.

“Yeah, like that’ll ever happen.” Peter rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t count if he confesses first, also!”

“He’s a better secret keeper than you’d think.” Tony replies, but think he thinks on it, well, hasn’t he really been doing the same thing as well?

Can’t really judge Steve for that anymore, he supposes.

A hand hovers over his stomach in memory of the secret he’s kept for months now.

“Are you feeling okay?” Peter asks.

“Yeah, yeah.” Tony shrugs it off. “Just a bad taco.”

~

“So, I got a taste for what it’s like to be hiding something from you for a few months. It’s kind of ironic, really, don’t you think? You kept a secret and it destroyed us. I keep a secret, and it could destroy us…” Tony is babbling really, but it’s more important to get the words out, rather than how it sounds or what it does to their relationship.

It could end things between them for good which is a shame when it seems like they could finally be something together.

“Tony... just tell me.” Steve is so far, taking it better than Tony expects. Perhaps he thinks he doesn’t have the high ground to judge Tony, or maybe he just thinks it’s something banal and innocuous. That said, Tony can see that Steve is tense and preparing himself for whatever comes out of his mouth next.

“Right, so, you remember our little tryst?”

“I do.”

“Well, as it turns out, I was pregnant when I got stabbed by Thanos. So…”

“When you said, you lost the kid, you meant our kid?” Steve’s voice gets strained and soft towards the end. He doesn’t really look the picture of the composed Captain America, so right now Tony knows he’s just Steve.

Just that same kid from Brooklyn just a couple of years piled on.

“Well, I did also very much mean Peter. Not of my blood, no, but still mine.” Not that Peter was the only one he had more or less adopted, but the only one that snap had taken away from him. “But yeah, also ours. What could I say? I woke up, and none of you found out. Expect Nebula, who kept my secret.”

Nebula was much too old to be adopted in the traditional sense, but he had seen that she’d been in need of at least somewhat healthy father figure, and well, nearly dying in space together had created a bond.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Did you think I wouldn’t care? That I wouldn’t have been there for you?” Tony watches Steve’s hands curl into fists and gets reminded of Siberia. It’s only there for a moment because they’re not going to hurt each other anymore.

They’re not going to try to hurt each other anymore, that was one of the things they’d discussed.

But open communication often meant pouring salt into wounds.

“It had very little to do with you, if I’m being honest.” Tony sighs, because that is the truth regardless of how it sounds. He hadn’t really thought of how it might impact Steve because there had been so much grief going on, and well, to shield him from that made sense.

God, it was really ironic how much insight this gave him into Steve keeping the secret of his parent’s death.

“Might have been ours, but it was my body. I didn’t even think I was capable of it, and let’s be honest, Steve, it was highly unlikely that I could have carried to full term. There wasn’t any pain, or any thought at that stage, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Okay…” Steve takes a deep breath, his fists uncurl, and he looks more at ease, even if pained. “You have a point about that. That’s… If it had to happen, it was probably for the best it was under those circumstances.”

“Had a kid die in my arms. I gotta say, that was a lot worse.”

“You really do think of him as your own, don’t you?”

“He is. I’m not overstepping anything. I make sure of that. He’s not the first either, there have been… others over time.”

Steve nods. “You don’t want another one, do you?”

“I can’t say I do, at least not like that. I’m not against adopting or fostering though. Plenty of kids out there that need familial figures. Don’t have to have one of our own to get that experience if that’s one you’d like to share with me.”

Tony extends his hand, for once being the one to approach Steve rather than the one way around and Steve interlaces his fingers with his own, and draws close. “I like the idea of that but let’s start off with the ones you have so far before we do anything so official, alright?”

“Agreed.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so as you can tell by the tags this deals with some very triggering topics. I'm going to elaborate here on that so no one goes into the fic unwarned, okay? 
> 
> So Tony gets pregnant, I didn't tag this abo because I just viewed him as trans, there really isn't any mention of any er... parts in regards to pregnancy so it's rather mild on that front. 
> 
> He has a miscarriage during the fight with Thanos, but not because of the Snap. 
> 
> The references to child death is due to a) the miscarriage, b) Peter, and c) to unnamed children Tony more than likely killed when he was a weapons dealer. 
> 
> While I think this ends on a happy note, some might be disappointed that Tony doesn't want to have anymore biological children but I really wanted a story that had the focus on the fact Tony Stark is already a Dad and has multiple adopted children rather than it just to cultivate in a bio kid.


End file.
